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'The Sit Room' brings you into the secretive Situation Room of the White House, the most important deliberative room in the world, during the early 1990s when the author was one of the policymakers who framed the Clinton administration's policy toward the bloody Balkans War. With newly declassified documents and his own notes to draw upon, David Scheffer, who later became America's first Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, weaves the true story of how policy options were debated in the Situation Room among the highest national security officials.

Within days of Madeleine Albright's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1993, she instructed David Scheffer to spearhead the historic mission to create a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As senior adviser to Albright and then as President Clinton's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Scheffer was at the forefront of the efforts that led to criminal tribunals for the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and that resulted in the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. "All the Missing Souls" is Scheffer's gripping insider's account of the international gamble to prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to redress some of the bloodiest human rights atrocities in our time. Scheffer reveals the truth behind Washington's failures during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the anemic hunt for notorious war criminals, how American exceptionalism undercut his diplomacy, and the perilous quests for accountability in Kosovo and Cambodia. He takes readers from the killing fields of Sierra Leone to the political back rooms of the U.N. Security Council, providing candid portraits of major figures such as Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, Richard Goldstone, Louise Arbour, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark, among others. A stirring personal account of an important historical chapter, "All the Missing Souls" provides new insights into the continuing struggle for international justice.

Within days of Madeleine Albright's confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 1993, she instructed David Scheffer to spearhead the historic mission to create a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. As senior adviser to Albright and then as President Clinton's ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Scheffer was at the forefront of the efforts that led to criminal tribunals for the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and that resulted in the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. All the Missing Souls is Scheffer's gripping insider's account of the international gamble to prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and to redress some of the bloodiest human rights atrocities in our time. Scheffer reveals the truth behind Washington's failures during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the anemic hunt for notorious war criminals, how American exceptionalism undercut his diplomacy, and the perilous quests for accountability in Kosovo and Cambodia. He takes readers from the killing fields of Sierra Leone to the political back rooms of the U.N. Security Council, providing candid portraits of major figures such as Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, Richard Goldstone, Louise Arbour, Samuel "Sandy" Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark, among others. -- From publisher description.

Several challenges arise in responding to atrocity crimes in contemporary practice. First, there is not the same proactive vision for justice in the U.N. Security Council as existed in 1993 and 1994. Second, reflecting upon the practice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and recent controversial judgments, the question looms whether judges properly evaluate how mass atrocity crimes occur within the particular characteristics of the overall situation or overall conflict. Third, the great value of international criminal tribunals and internationally-created hybrid tribunals is that they create a clear public record of events that, through the rigorous investigation and prosecution of atrocity crimes, rebut attempts at denial or revisionism by politicians and extremists. Further, a new paradigm in international affairs should be formulated, one that compels effective, timely, and significant multilateral responses directly aimed at lawless forces engaged in atrocity crimes and bold enough to act swiftly with lawful justification even in the absence of Security Council authorization thwarted by the veto power.

If the future of human rights is dependent on the capacity of the state to fulfill them, then one must focus on how the private sector interfaces with public values—an interface that directly affects how billions of people survive both economically and with dignity. During the last few years reports about multinational corporations shielding phenomenal profits from meaningful taxation have troubled governments and individual taxpayers alike. But there has been little effort to associate such tax avoidance schemes with corporate abdication of responsibility for advancing critical societal goals. Instead, much of the ensuing debate has centered on how to tax corporate profits fairly and more efficiently. While the ideas being marketed in this area are enlightening, there has been less discussion about why corporate taxation is a worthy public goal or what corporations should do voluntarily. The linkage between corporate tax avoidance and "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) has not yet been clearly drawn, but the moment has arrived to bridge the gap. That task may necessitate changing, fundamentally, the ethical framework within which corporate officers, boards of directors, shareholders, tax advisers, and stakeholders in general operate.

This piece is composed of written testimony submitted to the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, on October 6, 2009, for a hearing entitled, "No Safe Haven: Accountability for Human Rights Violators, Part II." The testimony addresses the Crimes Against Humanity Act of 2009. This legislation would introduce into federal law a broader set of criminal offenses pertaining to both U.S. citizens and aliens who visit or reside in the United States. The testimony focuses exclusively on criminal law and military law and how to ensure that U.S. law sufficiently empowers U.S. courts with appropriate jurisdiction to investigate and judge the culpability of alleged perpetrators of atrocity crimes.